


Seven Digits

by FenVallas



Series: Non-Canon Solavellan AUs [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:31:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3761632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/FenVallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas works as a barista at an upscale coffeeshop in a successful and wealthy college town. One day he meets a soaked woman with a Captain America tote bag seeking shelter from the rain, and a love affair begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vir_tanadahl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vir_tanadahl/gifts).



> V-T inspired this work and gave it the a go-go. Thank you. You're the peachiest of peaches.

There is a half a second during which he’s certain he’s seen her before – the curve of her lips and the shape of her face– but he dismisses the thought quickly. She is a wet woman sheltering the sudden spring storm outside and beyond that, she is a complete stranger, not the ghost of a woman so long dead her ashes had been forgotten on a shelf in the home of an ungrateful son. Solas was running from ghosts, and they had no right to follow him here, so when she comes to the counter to order, he avoids her.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually, he has to pay attention. The seconds tick away and there’s only so long he can pretend to be doing something else before impatience turns to aggravation. He’s been working here for seven months now, long enough to have dumped a city councilwoman’s latte into a ficus for treating her cashier as though she were a machine that accepted insults instead of money. Solas knows how customer service works, realizes full-well that a wet woman is that much more likely to demand immediate service than a dry one. At least this one would have a right to be angry.


	3. Chapter 3

In reality, the woman is more pleasant than he could have anticipated, her wit more dry than the t-shirt she wears that clings to skin. He notices how the hairs on her arms stand on end, and finds that up close her eyes are green and remind him far less of things he would prefer stay dead. They are alive, more alive than his own must be, though he imagines that if she notices she will attribute it to the fact that he works in customer service. If she doesn’t notice, it’s no loss to him, he feels only relief.


	4. Chapter 4

She orders a black coffee and asks if they have sugar, to which he responds by pointing to the counter adjacent to the cash register. People occasionally steal the Splenda and sugar packets, sometimes even the straws, but Sophia doesn’t care so Solas doesn’t stop them. This is her Coffeeshop and it is her rules that he abides by, especially because she was gracious enough to let him work here and because she took his side when the councilwoman complained. Solas cannot imagine being desperate enough for sugar that you would steal packets from a café. That wasn’t his desperate.


	5. Chapter 5

The woman thanks him and pays with a credit card, visibly grimacing when she sees the total and muttering something about how a teacher’s salary can’t afford “fancy ass coffee”. He remembers being young and starting out and for half an instant he commiserates with her, though he doesn’t say so. Students complain about a college budget, but there is a freedom in cup noodles and left over Dominos that there isn’t in suits and sweaters and dress slacks. The Institution is colder when you help run it. He looks at the woman and wonders if she would agree, perchance.


	6. Chapter 6

“Do you think it will stop raining soon?” She asks as he turns to get the coffee pot (black for caffeinated, orange for decaf). “I was going to the library to grade papers. The place I live is too loud to get anything done at.”

Solas looks out the window, but it’s still pouring rain. The other customers mill about in the dim Coffeeshop, most of them professionals are hipster wannabes. Perhaps he is simply used to the clientele now, but her soaked t-shirt and the Captain America tote over her shoulder make a feeling of hope bubble within him.


	7. Chapter 7

“The forecast this morning predicted scattered shows. I predict it will abate in short order,” Solas responded as he handed her the cardboard cup, insulated with a grip Sophia had special ordered to be printed with the company logo. “What do you teach?”

“What do you mean?” Solas has confused her, but the perplexed look vanishes a moment later and she smiles. “Oh, you heard the bit about grading papers.”

She shakes her head and a few water droplets land on the counter. The rest of the room remains oblivious to their exchange. Solas doesn’t mind that in the slightest


	8. Chapter 8

“These are baby’s first papers, actually,” the woman admits it without shame, her voice almost amused. “I teach the fifth graders at Lincoln Academy.”

“Many of the teachers buy coffee here.” Solas pitches his voice low, making sure only she could possibly hear him. “They think our coffee is a status symbol. I cannot actually imagine why.”

She laughs, and in an instant he was returning her laughter with a smile. It feels foreign on his face and he wonders how long it has been since he has smiled for the sake of smiling. Years, though Solas couldn’t actually remember.


	9. Chapter 9

“The prestige. Most of my colleagues are just like the parents who send their kids to Lincoln. It’s that middleclass, 1950s and 60s “keeping up with the Jonses” mentality,” She reaches for a napkin from the napkin dispenser and takes the pen she had used to sign her receipt.

For what seems like an eternity, the pen stayed suspended over the napkin before it bled ink into the soft paper, the scratching something of a promise.

It’s her number, seven digits and an area code.

He wants to ask why but he doesn’t, taking the napkin and folding it gingerly.


	10. Chapter 10

“Just… Use it, please,” she says. “I don’t usually go giving things like that to strange bald baristas.”

Her green eyes dart over his nametag before she smiles, takes her coffee and turns to go fetch her sugar packets. Solas stares after her for a moment, then looks outside to find that it has stopped raining. She glances over her shoulder once more and then she’s gone, and he wonders if he should take her up on her strange offer to talk.

For the rest of his shift, that little napkin feels oddly heavy as it sits in his apron.


	11. Chapter 11

Two days pass before Solas uses the number, not because he had forgotten about it, but because the days where he was comfortable talking to women in a setting which might be considered romantic or even merely flirtatious had long since passed. When he had worked at the University he had been married to his research. Dusty mummies and shards of faded pottery were his paramours, his academic pursuits the star of his every waking thought.

Life after New Kingdom Temples, after desert heat and the misplaced romance of the media toward his field, is quieter, and he lacks confidence.


	12. Chapter 12

She answers after the third ring.

“I almost didn’t pick up,” she says after he (re)introduced himself. “But then I remembered your name, because it is a bit odd.”

His given name was odder, but that wasn’t something to mention during a phone conversation. It isn’t something he is sure he wants to mention at all. Reaching out beyond himself is difficult, and this is a risk he hopes he doesn’t come to regret.

“You wanted me to call?” It sounds less like an inquiry and more like an expression of his disbelief.

“Do you want to meet over lunch?”


	13. Chapter 13

The question surprises him, but he manages to keep the shock from his voice. Does she simply find him interesting, he wonders? She didn’t look all that old, but perhaps that is because he himself has reached an age where late thirties, early forties no longer seem advanced in age.

Still, Solas does not allow the silence to linger and darken this conversation. Instead, he agrees to meet on a day that works for both of them, this coming Saturday, at a place they both enjoy. It’s not a date, he assures himself.

She could simply want to be friends.


	14. Chapter 14

The rest of the week moves too slowly, and by Friday, Solas is aggravated with one of Sophia’s usual customers, a stocky and barrel chested man who dresses more like a pimp than a bestselling author. He wears his chest hair like a badge of honor, though Solas finds it distracting to look at.

“Tell me, Chuckles,” the man says, stroking his stubble, “what do you think would drive an intelligent, pretty woman to a man in the minors when she’s totally major league?”

“Perhaps she is simply attracted to him?” Solas smiles his insincere smile, annoyed by the question.


	15. Chapter 15

“Well, maybe. She could just have a weird taste in men, I guess, but the guy in this story is pretty unremarkable, except…” The Storyteller presses his lips together and stares into the distance for a long moment, his eyes unfocused as he dreams of worlds only he can see. “He’s a sort of special character, Chuckles. It’s important that this relationship happen for the End Game, but I don’t know what draws her to him.”

He sighs and leans back, staring at the tiled ceiling, his eyes slipping closed as Solas flips the sign in the window to “CLOSED”.


	16. Chapter 16

“I would need context in order to offer my advice, Varric” Solas says, sitting down across from the patron, figuring that the sooner he helps this man, the sooner he will be able to go home and dread lunch the next day.

Varric glances conspiratorially across the room, but Solas has already sent the help home. Outside of the storefront, the world turns pastel shades of blue, violet, and red. They are completely alone.

“Yeah, okay. But what I’m about to tell is confidential. It’s spoilers. It never leaves this room.”

Solas nods his head and prepares himself to listen.


	17. Chapter 17

“This guy is a god,” Varric begins. “I’ve been trying to set him up as the Big Bad, but he isn’t. He’s just my smokescreen, “Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain”, and all that nice shit.”

Solas nods and recalls talk of gods from Varric’s other novels, though he read them out of boredom.

“Basically, he’s up to some really shifty stuff and is a driving force behind this novel’s plot. He’s really dedicated to his mission, but he’s going to fall in love with the protagonist… And it will change him. She’s going to change him.”


	18. Chapter 18

“For the better?” Solas asks, not needing to feign interest – The way Varric talks about his novels is fascinating. “Is she going to redeem him?”

He didn’t think Varric would use such an obvious trope.

“Not outright,” Varric chews on the cap of his pen and strokes his stubble with his other hand. “More like she makes it possible for him to let go of his pain, but only eventually. He has to make the choice on his own, Chuckles. That’s the way it works in real life, too.”

Solas knows Varric is right from his personal experience. “I see."


	19. Chapter 19

Solas pauses and thinks for a moment.

He has never personally been in love, does not know what it is like, but it seems to him that Varric is thinking from the wrong direction. “May I make a suggestion?” he asks after a moment.

“That’s what you’re here for, Chuckles.”

Solas offers him a small, lopsided smile and leans against the trash bin, staring out the window into the street. The street is quiet, and so is he as he searches for the words to bring his thoughts to life.

“She should fall in love with who he is, Varric.”


	20. Chapter 20

“Who he is?”

Solas understands love from a theoretical standpoint and thinks that romantic love cannot be that different from the love he feels for Sophia or Cole, the young man who works the night shift on weekends.

“You’re focusing on the physical. I understand that sex could be a selling point if this were a romance novel, but it is not. You have implied there is no happy ending,” Solas waves his hand and looks over his shoulder. “If he is not conventionally attractive, then do not start with the body. Have her fall for the things he does.”


	21. Chapter 21

“You’re right,” Varric leans his head back and stares at the ceiling, though Solas only sees this action through his reflection, turning his head only when deep laughter starts to bubble from his companion. “Holy shit, Chuckles. Was it really that easy? I guess Swords and Shields really messed with my ability to work on my dramatic high fantasy serial.”

“Sometimes…” Solas pauses and thinks of his lunch date tomorrow, of the woman and the seven digits that lay on his desk at home. “Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective for one to start to change their thinking.”


	22. Chapter 22

That night, Solas sits at his computer staring at a blank screen, reading e-mails he will never answer. He remembers his old life and how empty it had been, though he had everything he could ever want. Against all odds, he finds himself missing the times when things were harder, but at least he had felt he belonged.

Thinking of the woman’s smiling face (her name is Rey Lavellan), he wonders if finding a new friend would be so bad after all.

Feeling guilt for things that happened three decades ago is pointless.

But Solas knows he will never stop.


	23. Chapter 23

The next day they meet, dressed as casually as he had anticipated they would be. He wears oversized sweaters in his daily life, and this seems to surprise her, though she doesn’t look displeased. She herself is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt – another bit of Super Hero paraphernalia, he sees, though this time it is Batman.

“You dress like a librarian,” she says with a grin as she sits down across from him.

“And you dress like a college student,” Solas replies, then pauses. “No, that is not quite true. If you truly did, you would be wearing pajamas.”


	24. Chapter 24

“My brother would probably be a bit offended by that, but he’s a bit better dressed than most grad students.” She smiles lazily at him from over the edge of the menu. “Hell, he’s better dressed than me, but as you can see, that’s not saying much.”

“Some people are simply unusual,” Soals says in passing. “Though I find most college students have grown apathetic about their appearance. I cannot say as I blame them – Their lives are ruled by their grades.”

“Kind of like me, though you should replace “their grades” with “the PTA”.

She makes a disgusted face.


	25. Chapter 25

“Ah yes, parents.” Solas understands parents well, though he knows it much be that much worse for Miss Lavellan – The younger the children, the more insufferable the parent.

“You mean to tell me you’re failing _my_ child?” Solas’ voice takes on a shrill, mocking quality, and he presses his hand to his chest in mock offense. “Their behavioral issues cannot possibly be real! Here is an excuse for why they are not a bad child and I am not a bad parent! This is your fault, you terrible teacher. Unfail them this instant or I shall report you.”

She laughs.


End file.
